HART COTTAGE
Lee Hartnup stood in the shadows of his family house and watched the officer die.
Because he did not need to breathe, he was able to scream continually the whole time, from first bite until the thing that was his body turned away from the lifeless meat.
He did not understand that.
The thing fed on anything it could catch. People, animals, insects crawling on trees. It fed, tearing each living being apart, drinking the blood, eating the flesh, gnawing bones. And then it stopped. Floating in the inner darkness but still connected to every nerve and sensation, he could tell that it was not a feeling of satiation that compelled the monster to stop feeding. The hunger that lived inside this hollow man was insatiable, vast and eternal. And yet it stopped.
Why?
His body let the policeman’s corpse slide down the side of the house and sprawl in an ungainly tangle of limbs.
Why discard it? Why stop eating when there was so much meat left?
And at that thought—at the fact that this thought came from his own mind—the screaming started again.
The body moved. It shambled toward the front porch steps, moving awkwardly as rigor mortis took a greater hold over each joint.
Please, he begged, let it stop me completely. That was his only hope now, that the death stiffness would freeze his body and stop it from doing these terrible things. He had no way of telling time, but he knew that rigor began setting in about three hours after death. Rigor was growing in him quickly. But it would take up to twelve hours for it to reach its peak, and then it would last for three days.
Three days.
Surely if rigor made this lumbering monster fall and lie stiffly in the grass someone would find him within three days. Find him, and do what was necessary to stop this. Bury him. Dissect him. Burn him.
Please … anything!
He would welcome any death, any true death, no matter how painful or protracted, as long as it stopped this.
At the bottom step the thing’s feet hit the wooden riser and rebounded. Hartnup tried to listen inside that darkness for some trace of a mind, of a presence. If something was there, if there was some consciousness or spirit—even that of a ghost or demon or whatever had done this to him—then perhaps he could reason with it. Bargain with it.
The
right leg bent at the knee and the foot rose over the riser and thumped down on the bottom step.
Hartnup felt it happen but nowhere in this vast darkness could he detect the slightest trace of a directing intelligence.
What was making the legs move? What allowed this thing to encounter the problem of an obstacle like stairs and come up with the solution of stepping up? Even a newborn baby could not do that. This thing has less consciousness than an infant, so how—how—HOW—was it doing this?
His rational mind tore itself to pieces trying to solve that.
The dead thing took a second step, a third, and then it was on the porch, facing the front door.
With a burst of terror more profound than anything he had so far experienced, Hartnup knew what door this was. Just as he knew what unbearable horror lay behind it.
Through the closed window he heard the sound of voices. Two women. One was a stranger. The other.
April.
His sister.
And the laughter of children.
The thing raised a hand and pounded on the door. It was limp, almost completely slack, but it was loud.
“Hey, Ken—did you lock yourself out?”
The other woman’s voice, coming close, a trace of laughter in her words.